Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

George Clarke With director Soi Cheang delivering such dark thrillers like the amazing Dog Bite Dog and Shamo, etc, I was quite curious as to how this adaptation of the world famous story was brought to the big screen.I mean, it hasn't been that long since the awesome Jackie Chan, Jet Li vehicle, The Forbidden Kingdom with Jet Li as the Monkey King.And then there was the awesome Journey To The West: Conquering The Demons, from the fantastic Stephen Chow Sing Chi.And now, The Monkey King with the incredible Donnie Yen as the titular hero...First of, even at 2 hours long, The Monkey King feels somewhat longer. Saying that, it is a visual feast that sometimes wins with its CGI and quite often doesn't, reminding me of the fist attempts at Hong Kong effects-filled movies like, Storm Riders and A Man Called Hero.Often slow burning, with average fantasy action scenes and wire-fu, The Monkey King is rife with amazing characters from Chinese mythology, including one of my favourites, little Nezha and his flamed wheels on his feet!Cast wise, Chow Yun Fat looks as cool as always as the Jade Emperor, and the gorgeous Aaron Kwok plays the Bull King - although looks slightly bored in doing so. And then there is Donnie Yen.I love Donnie. Always have, for about 30 years now, and feel that since his explosion in the US, critics have been harsh on him for his choice in roles - no matter how many he is dishing out.As the Monkey King, I think Donnie pulls of an amazing job, making me sometimes wonder who I am looking at. His performance is pretty damn good, working through a host of emotions and physical roles alongside a bevvy of great characters.Overall though, I think the film just falls short of amazing. I feel it is something that needs to be seen in 3D to be appreciated more, but also feel that it was an unneeded remake of sorts, that didn't offer anything exciting but the use of its visual flair.Action fans will be disappointed, but I hope this film finds a place in the family friendly section of all film fans and can be seen at least once..!

M4R71N Okay, it's not exactly 'Lord of the Rings' but it's not as bad as the reviewers here say it is. People complaining about lack of depth and change in characters, most of them are deities so what do you expect. I thought the visuals, costumes, make-up etc were also excellent. It may appear as a kid's movie for some but thats a good thing, it can be enjoyed by all ages. I couldn't believe the guy that played Monkey King is the same guy who played IP MAN, wasn't an easy job but he pulled it off and other actors were also great. I'm actually looking forward to the sequel if it is in the making I would recommend it to anyone, don't believe the reviews they're just talking rubbish.

djarnnic I have to say I'm not impressed at all, the story telling was very bad, all over the place.If you step back and think about it, you get the story, but you shouldn't have to, the director should tell it without much thought from you.This is one of those movies that should have been longer by breaking it up in to parts.This is an example of a lot of story telling crammed into too short of time.The special effects are very good and so is the 3D, but there were times like when the characters morph into dogs, the dogs were very badly done.I think they used big names like Donnie Yen combined with a lot of very good special effects to wow the viewer, but the story telling was bad, very bad.I've loved Chinese Martial Arts movies and actors ( such as Jet Li and Donnie Yen ) because you can see that even though it's a movie and it's all staged that the actors really do have Martial Arts backgrounds with their form etc, but in this movie I was disappointed because the quality of fighting, well you could have got Hollywood actors who had a weekend of lessons to do the job.The Monkey King's fighting scenes with the staff were bad too, fast forwarded most of the time and not much impact left me disappointed.I'm trying to elaborate further to explain myself better but I'm so disappointed at the moment I can't muster the energy to. Must be how the Director was when making this movie.Basically whats happened is, as life and stories go, there are chapters, all this story teller has done is taken a pinch from each chapter and merged it into the next, summarized them instead of going into it. They don't even take the time to tell the parts where The Monkey Kings Master trains him, he's "born" then next thing is he's released to go on his own way.The story only starts getting OK with some sort of feeling and substance to it towards the end when he returns to find his monkey "offspring" dead.I expected a lot more from a Donnie Yen movie and even more from a story being told of the Legendary Monkey King.The movie Forbidden Kingdom did a lot more justice to the story telling of The Monkey King and the movie didn't even have that much of The Monkey King in it. In this movie it was more like watching a circus monkey that got special powers than watching a story of The Monkey king.The only reason I gave it 2 stars was because of the good computer effects. There was so much more potential to this story and how it was told. I reiterate that it would have been better if they took more time for each chapter and split it in to multiple movie parts.The positive is I now understand better why movies like The Lord of the Ring are told in multiple parts.

Gyogurt I can only feel sorry for the Chinese people fond of their cultural heritage. Donnie Yen's Monkey King was painful to watch. Specially the costumes were so kitsch I wanted to shout of annoyment: 'What the hell have U done with the 100M$ budget, fools!" Next and near as bad as the costumes, the CGI/special effects pathetically trying to imitate a bunch of various styles in an awkward way bordering the look of a college project movie. It's actually hard to believe that such mediocre production can be achieved today with that kind of budget, particularly since a few 'international experts' were working on this flick and anyone who has any idea about what these people could do with that kind of money will be bewildered to witness the end result. Finally, I have read from Chinese reviewers that the original story has gone very much out of tracks with this movie and it is a pity to think that such a classic part of their culture is being mixed up by modern 'story tellers' who have no respect for the very material they use to make money. If Donnie Yen wished to do one more take on the Monkey King, He could at least have respected the source material rather than releasing a distorted and immature production for the whole world to absorb, thus diluting slowly the accuracy of the original epic story. For one thing, if U are just someone who wanna take kids to the theater to see some Asian movie, then this might be working for them at the condition that they are under 6-7 or didn't yet develop a critical sense about movies. Hehe. I give it a 4/10 for some OK sequences, and I feel somehow generous.